1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to integrated circuit oscillators and more particularly to microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) oscillators.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) device may be included in an electronic oscillator that converts a direct current from a power supply to an alternating current signal. A typical oscillator includes a core amplifier that senses one (or more) electrode(s) of the MEMS device and drives a restoring voltage on another electrode of the MEMS device. The output of a typical MEMS resonator is a small signal that is amplified by a buffer amplifier to generate a usable signal for other circuits. However, low-power buffering of any of the small electrode signals will introduce substantial noise into the signal. Furthermore, techniques to reduce noise added to a signal by a buffer amplifier generally increase power consumption of the buffer amplifier and do not reduce noise introduced by the core oscillator since the buffer amplifier is outside of the core oscillator feedback loop. Accordingly, improved MEMS oscillator techniques are desired.